Mr. Speaker, the member for St. Albert has raised a very serious point. He is claiming that the government has attempted to usurp the authority and responsibility of the House and its members.
As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, this responsibility of the House represents a basic principle of our constitution. The fundamental principle, that the crown has no power to tax except by grant of parliament, is to be found even in the Magna Carta. The bill of rights of 1689 declares:
Levying money for or to the use of the crown by pretence of prerogative without grant of Parliament for longer time or in another manner than the same is or shall be granted is illegal.
The principle that parliament approves expenditures for the specific purposes for which they were intended began as far back as Charles II and was developed under William and Mary. As a result, we are governed today by rules that make it illegal for the executive to make expenditures, except those expenditures that are approved by parliament in ways approved by parliament.
Mr. Speaker, we have just had a report from the modernization committee suggesting that there are deficiencies in the handling of estimates by parliament. It recognized that:
The estimates are an important tool in terms of accountability, and the financial control of the House of Commons. Despite numerous procedural changes over the years, we have been unable to discover a workable solution. There are many reasons for the lack of progress in this area, many of which are attributed to our political culture.
This disturbing attempt by the government to erode the influence of the Commons in this way represents some of that political culture. While we as members could alter the rules to improve the way we consider the estimates, only you, Mr. Speaker, can protect our financial privileges from the government's attempt to slide through illegal spending.
Therefore I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to take this point of order very seriously. We ask that you protect the ancient constitutional right of the Commons to insist on legislative authority as a precondition to sanction grants of supply.